If they worked then we would not need any doctors or medicine or surgery. Think about it. It is all superstition

Cheers
Nandan

Sry, this is not a comment on the post. Its general. Liked your blog and the way you see things!Keep it up.Persons like you make living worthwhile!

I work for the govt At Mysore, Karnataka.

Cheers,

Manivannan

http://www.induspost.org/blog/2008/12/10/mns-raj-thackray-threat-to-india-as-a-nation/

Man, don’t forget that we (the people of Bihar cum UP)….
….we control the media, politics, entertainment, whatever!!!

The above I had in my clipboard (ctrl+c)and it got pasted here as well by accident. (I was actually responding to this kind of childish posting on a private blog of mine and quoting it)… stupid accident!

As for the rest, I will agree with your post. I too feel very very angered at this twisting and turning of things by the media. This issue is in fact from the start a Frankenstein monster created by the media.

As you point out, sections of media still in an on and off way are indulging in the sensationalizing of whatever he says. But there’s one thing that can be said, it’s a sin being committed with mutual consent.

As we all know, it started when in February this year, they misquoted him and said he was insulting Amitabh Bachchan for loving UP. When in fact he was complementing Amitabh by calling him a great artist, all he was doing was comparing Amitabh’s love for UP with his own for MH. So, he was equal to AB was the statement in a way.

This was the first mildly seductive instigation by the media to Raj. After print media published it and he got a lot of TV time as would happen, he got fairly well criticized for criticizing Amitabh’s love for Uttar Pradesh.

Well, the next day, he courteously even held a press conference and again while calling Amitabh a great artist quoted the exact phrase Amitabh had used that he still is known as the chora ganga kinarey wala and that he also loves Maharashtra so much and etc etc.

The national Hindi-English media (which is what Raj calls it now) could have reported his presentation as is and moved on but it was too seduced too just disengage and kept the same refrain – Raj Thackeray bashed NI’s. The TRP’s got high, this whipped up subdued sentiments, Raj got exclusive TV time. This I believe was frank invitation by the media to… lets call it ‘sin’.

And well, he couldn’t resist and gave in. I respect his Intelligence and shrewdness in that it took him only a few days to make up his mind. It was unethical of course but it wasn’t too unethical for his taste. (Indian politics has seen far far far far worse)

He did not deny, correct or apologize, the media was unable to pull itself away from him and was obsessed with his campaign. By now, the politicians all joined in and played their games, letting Raj & Media fuck it up to what it has become.

And the damage it has done is sad.
As you said, rediff is somewhat unbiased, I found this description very correct [ http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/sep/09guest.htm ] :

Raj Thackeray, no babe in the woods, and in search of a political platform which would yield him his constituency, seemed to have decided within the first week of February that the issue was not only engaging a media which had made up their minds but seemed to catch the imagination of his cadres who would otherwise dump him if they saw no future with him, made the lie his truth. And with good results, too.

There were some voices from bollywood like Nana Patekar, Sajid Khan etc at the time about freedom of speech. But nothing happened.

Now it has snowballed to what nobody ever wanted it to.

And oh yes, previously, I was commenting on the whole issue and the frustration over lack of action against Raj Thackeray even after crimes have been committed at his command by his goons, acknowledged by him. And anyone has to agree, that what has happened in MH recently has been very insulting and damaging to NI’s, we are bound to be angered.